ClamWin 1

Let's face it, one of the primary jobs a Windows admin does is keep machines free of infection. It's inevitable - end users will open files, install cutesy apps, and go to sites they shouldn't. When they do these things, their machines get infected. When their machines get infected, you could wind up fighting a losing battle - unless you have the right tools.

Sometimes the antivirus tools installed on the machine just aren't enough. When that time comes, you'll be glad you have one (or more) tools on your USB drive to help you out. I've found five such tools that could certainly get you out of a serious pinch. All of these tools are portable and work like champs.

Five Apps

1. ClamWin Portable

ClamWin Portable is very much like its big brother: It's free, open source, and does a great job of disinfecting machines. ClamWin has a very high detection rate, has frequently updated definitions, and has an easy to use graphical interface.

Credit: Images by Jack Wallen for TechRepublic

ClamWin 2

The only caveat to using ClamWin is that it does not offer a real-time scanner - which is not an issue for a portable version. This is my go-to portable virus scanning software.

Credit: Images by Jack Wallen for TechRepublic

Sophos Anti Rootkit Portable 1

2. Sophos Anti Rootkit Portable

Sophos Anti Rootkit Portable is one of those tools you hope you never have to use; but you know, at some point, you will. Sophos is remarkably adept at locating root kits - especially for a portable app. Sophos: scans, detects and removes rootkits, is 100% free, supports Windows XP, Vista and 7, and works alongside your existing antivirus.

Credit: Images by Jack Wallen for TechRepublic

Sophos Anti Rootkit Portable 2

I have found Sophos reliable enough to use even while the PC being scanned is in use.

Credit: Images by Jack Wallen for TechRepublic

Emsisoft Free Emergency Toolkit 1

3. Emsisoft Free Emergency Toolkit

Emsisoft Free Emergency Toolkit is a powerful malware removal tool that can scan for, and remove, over six million dangers to your PC. Emsisoft Free Emergency Toolkit has both a GUI and a command line version, so you can scan your machine even if there are problems with the GUI.

Credit: Images by Jack Wallen for TechRepublic

Emsisoft Free Emergency Toolkit 2

With this toolkit, you not only get the malware scanner, you also get HiJackFree and BlitzBlank as well. Emsisoft offers the free download, or you can purchase a pre-compiled USB stick.

Credit: Images by Jack Wallen for TechRepublic

Vipre Rescue 1

4. Vipre Rescue

Vipre Rescue is that tool you use when your machine is severely infected. Vipre is run in safe mode and does not depend upon a GUI tool for use. You double-click the executable and a command window opens with the scanner running (and running at blazing speeds).

Credit: Images by Jack Wallen for TechRepublic

Vipre Rescue 2

If you already use the full version of Vipre, you can still run this tool should your machine become so infected, Vipre will not run.

Credit: Images by Jack Wallen for TechRepublic

Spybot Search and Destroy Portable 1

5. Spybot Search and Destroy Portable

Spybot Search and Destroy Portable is the portable version of the massively popular full Spybot Search and Destroy. This antimalware tool does a great job of finding and removing malicious software - all from your flash drive.

Credit: Images by Jack Wallen for TechRepublic

Spybot Search and Destroy Portable 2

Spybot has a unique feature that will help you backup your registry before you begin the scan. Should Spybot fubar your PCs registry, you have a backup to restore to - safe and sound.

Bottom line

You know that point is coming when you'll require the assistance of portable antivirus and/or antimalware. It's a shame that this is such a big part of our jobs, but it is inevitable. Make sure you are always armed with the tools to combat this plague by keeping a few of these portable apps along with you.

ClamWin 1

Let's face it, one of the primary jobs a Windows admin does is keep machines free of infection. It's inevitable - end users will open files, install cutesy apps, and go to sites they shouldn't. When they do these things, their machines get infected. When their machines get infected, you could wind up fighting a losing battle - unless you have the right tools.

Sometimes the antivirus tools installed on the machine just aren't enough. When that time comes, you'll be glad you have one (or more) tools on your USB drive to help you out. I've found five such tools that could certainly get you out of a serious pinch. All of these tools are portable and work like champs.

Five Apps

1. ClamWin Portable

ClamWin Portable is very much like its big brother: It's free, open source, and does a great job of disinfecting machines. ClamWin has a very high detection rate, has frequently updated definitions, and has an easy to use graphical interface.

Credit: Images by Jack Wallen for TechRepublic

About Jack Wallen

Jack Wallen is an award-winning writer for TechRepublic and Linux.com. He’s an avid promoter of open source and the voice of The Android Expert. For more news about Jack Wallen, visit his website getjackd.net.

Full Bio

Jack Wallen is an award-winning writer for TechRepublic and Linux.com. He’s an avid promoter of open source and the voice of The Android Expert. For more news about Jack Wallen, visit his website getjackd.net.

I also hate that I have to click and wait for each page and if I want to copy and keep the info, it makes it a major hassle, not worth my time, come on wise up. Make your pages user friendly, this is the worst display of a webpage I have ever seen. I love Tech Republic, but I sure hate it when I have to wade thru the pages.

Agreeing with previously posted comments....pain in the A#*....please folks,join in on the comments,let The powers that be @ TechRepublic Know HOW MUCH you HATE this..(or not) ..........I,for one ,absolutely,seethingly, LOATHE it !!!!!!!!!!!!

OK, so ClamWin Portable is one of those five apps. Where are numbers 2 through 5? Viewing it here or viewing it on your site does not make the situation any better.
So here's what I have done: I have saved the link to this one app and after making three attempts to get the rest of the article and feeling like an idiot each time, I have moved on.
And this happens to me all the time. I'm sure I am not alone.
Would you PLEASE consider @bandacoo's request and make life easier for us?

THANK you Bandacoo! THANK YOU Laurentian Enterprises! FINALLLY people are voicing what I have thought for a LONG time! PLEASE put more of your articles on one page! It would be SO much easier to scroll down to the next article, rahter than to {CLICK - W-a-i-t for the page to load, read the short article, CLICK...}

I can't even find the next page or the continuation of the article! It is so ridiculous that it is so difficult to find! Guess this may be the last time I am gong to waste my time reading this if I can't find the next page! Why not put everything on one page? Bad planning!

Some intersting tools I will need to play with. Back in the day it used to be Hijack This, Stinger, Adaware and Spybot with an online scan from Trend Micro was pretty much the tools to detect and clean most that came across my workbench.
Of late it has been Hiajck This, Malwarebytes, Superantispyware and Combofix with remote scans from my lab machine using Avast and Nod32. As they say - if you are not constantly moving you are falling behind.

A must-have. One of the best things MS produces, and they give it away free! Boots to its own limited version of Win7, from CD or USB stick. Be sure to get both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Only problem is keeping it updated - tedious on flash drives, impossible on CD's.

I have had great success with SuperAntiSpyware and I keep a portable version updated on my tools USB drive. It does not require an Internet connection and it uses a random exe name to prevent malware from attacking it before you even get it started.
http://www.superantispyware.com/portablescanner.html

Although not a portable app, I have used it to get rid of tool bars and browser helper apps that seem impossible to get rid of -- including "browser" trojans. Its also got a section for windows start ups, but I have other favorite tools for that.
Its a free tool (with some installation check boxes you need to uncheck). Its available at cNet or toolbarcleaner.com

Recently had a customer's machine that using any browser (IE, Firefox, Chrome) had constant popups and redirects. Tried the usual list of free products (Malwarebytes, Superantispyware, TDSSkiller, Sophos, OT, Combofix, etc) and nothing solved the problem. A friend recommended Spyhunter (not free), and in desperation I hunted down a discounted copy of it and tried it. So far, it seems to have solved the problem. Sometimes I find that their never seems to be any one or two products that solve problems, but about ten products you need at your disposal to handle most situations.

Why can't you put your stories on one page? Does it make your advertisers think you have more web traffic to spread a story over ten pages? I have pretty much stopped visiting your site as it is very annoying to have to keep clicking and wait for pages to load to read a story.

http://www.avg.com/us-en/avg-rescue-cd
Just used this recently and it worked great. Has a linux boot from a USB stick that grabs the latest definitions from an internet connection and then scans and cleans everything on the host computers HD. Best of all it's free!

I was always under the impression that Vipre was totally useless as an AV program?
Spybot mentioned without Malwarebytes/HijackThis/ComboFix... It seems your toolkit is missing some very important tools!

Great stuff Jack but I just thought I'd see if you tried Malwarebytes Anti-Malware. It can be used for free as well. I've used it for years and it has been really valuable.
One additional comment is I did buy the MBAM Pro version and it runs real time and has been quite useful in preventing viruses and blocking hacker websites since it monitors real time and works along side the Avast Antivirus protection I also have installed.

Getting to the related post for any image gallery is extremely simple.
Immediately below the thumbnails and the page title ("ClamWin 1" in this case) is the statement "This gallery is also available as a post in the Tech Republic Five Apps Blog." A click on that link will take you to the associated blog post.
A similar link is available on every image gallery with a related blog.

To move to the next page, click on the arrow at the top right of the image or click on the thumbnails under the image.
To view it as a single-page blog post, click on the link in the sentence "This gallery is also available as a post in the Tech Republic Five Apps Blog."
If you are running a script blocker, you must whitelist techrepublic.com, com.com, trstatic.com, zdnetstatic.com, and spstatic.com for the page to load correctly.

I've seen some malware that can defeat HighJack this lately, and Combo-Fix too! The new malware has become more and more vexing, and with the exit of AdAware as a trusted tool, I've had even more trouble every since!

is the only way to go. I always meant to test Spyhunter, but it sounded like a cheap outfit from the late '80s, HA! No worse that the title [b]Super-Anti-Spyware[/b] though! And SAS is golden for a free scanner.

Getting to the blog post for any image gallery with a related blog is extremely simple.
Immediately below the thumbnails and the page title ("ClamWin 1" in this case) is the statement "This gallery is also available as a post in the Tech Republic Five Apps Blog." A click on that link will take you to the associated blog post and you may now learn (or whatever) without feeling compelled to fatten TR's coffers.
A similar link is available on [b]every[/b] image gallery with a related blog post.

TR doesn't give a crap about content or ease of reading. They just want us loading pages and redisplaying ads as much as possible. It's been bad enough in the past that they put every product in a list like this on it's own page. Now they're splitting up with one or two sentences per page, to get multiple views per product. And it's all a bunch of crappy fluff anyway. About time to unsubscribe for this viewer.

I use Vipre on several clients, total of about 50 workstations. Very rare to get an infected machine, always due to user ignoring warnings. Best thing about it is that it doesn't take much resources, never get complaints from users about AV slowing machine down. Also, great central management console.

I have never heard of Vipre being useless. I have over 300 clients deployed and rarely get a call on Vipre Protected workstations. It is usually a Norton or McAfee protected computer that I get calls on. I would definity add Malware Anti MAlware Bytes to the toolkit

however SAS has a crazy fast scanner, and I've not found anything as thorough at such blazing speeds. I must admit I didn't know about the Emisoft and Viper tools though. That Viper solution sounds interesting. I tested and couldn't stand their regular Viper AV product - the updater was just too meddlesome and intrusive.

Never used it myself, but I always rely on testings sites (not magazines) to rate these products. The latest VB100 test shows that Vipre along with other products like Norton and Iolo failed their tests. So I think, "With all the good products that pass the tests, why would I ever consider using ones that fail such a recognized testing site's tests?"